Officer: Good morning, sir, how can I help you?

Visitor: Miss, actually. I’m a woman.

Officer: Sorry, si…miss, of course you are. Please forgive my slip of the tongue. Your beard threw me off recognising your true femininity.

Visitor: Aye, smashing.

Officer: Anyway, miss, how can I help you?

Visitor: I’m here to register for a gender recognition certificate.

Officer: Excellent. A brave and stunning choice, if I may say so. Now, you are aware that you have to provide evidence that you’ve been living as a woman for three months or longer?

Visitor: Yes. I’ve been doing that.

Officer: Excellent. Can you give me some examples? For the form.

Visitor: Well, I’ve been spending a lot of time in the women’s changing rooms at the gym.

Officer: Ah, I guessed that you worked out a lot, from the way you so completely fill that charming XXXL “Show me your tits” t-shirt. Now, do you always use female pronouns?

Visitor: Yes, I call everyone ‘Babe’, ‘Sweetie’, or ‘Sugar-tits’

Officer: Good, good. And how about things like your driving licence and bank account? Have you informed them that you’re female?

Visitor: Not yet, because I’m not ‘out’ to my wife. She’s had a lot of problems accepting that I’m just trying to find lesbian love, and she says she’s taking the kids if she catches me at it again.

Officer: Tsk, women, eh?

Visitor: Ahem!

Officer: Oh, not you, sir. I mean those other women. The bad kind.

Visitor: Um, when I get me GRC I’ll be able to call them bigots and have them hounded out of their jobs, right?

Officer: Absolutely, sir and miss, all part of the service. Right, now you have to make a solemn declaration. I need to warn you that it’s a criminal offence to make a false or fraudulent declaration.

Visitor: There’s not a lie-detector test or nothing, is there?

Officer: Hahaha, of course not, smiss, you just sign here, to indicate that you understand it’s an offence to lie to us, and that you really, truly are a woman, and then we believe you.

Visitor: And I don’t have to get me knob cut off, or anything like that?

Officer: No, that would be barbaric. It’s no indication that you’re not a woman.

Visitor: So… what kind of thing would make you think I was lying to you?

Officer: I’ve no idea, missir it’s never come up.

Visitor: OK, well that’s not a problem, then.

Officer: Thank you. Lovely signature. Very girly the way you’ve drawn hearts over your X

Visitor: When do I get my certificate, then?

Officer: Hold your horses, young lady, I need to ask if you’ve been convicted of any sexual offences.

Visitor: Well, you know, one or two… but not for weeks now.

Officer: Sorry, but that means I have to make enhanced checks. Now, are you really, really sure you’re a woman?

Visitor: Yes

Officer: Good, good, that all seems to be in order, then.

Visitor: Hang on, if I want to change back to being a bloke I can, right?

Officer: Yes, of course, you just have to make another solemn declaration that you plan to live the rest of your life as a man.

Visitor: And I wouldn’t get done for that fraudulent declaration thing?

Officer: No, no, because gender is a fluid and evolving inner sense, which can change for many reasons over a person’s lifetime, and as long as you are being truthful at each declaration then you’ve nothing to fear.

Visitor: And it wouldn’t matter how long there was between these solemn declaration?

Officer: I don’t think so, but how long are we talking about?

Visitor: Well, next week… if I get acquitted.